Author Archives: Ralph Hanson

TV/movie piracy & Hollywood. Who’s to blame? And is it all bad?

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

A post in honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Are improper movie downloads Hollywood’s own fault? Kinda looks like it.  When you give people easy, reasonably priced ways to download movies, they prefer them over “pirated” downloads. And as … Continue reading →

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A Motorcycle Ride to the United 93 Memorial on a Rainy Summer Day

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

This has nothing to do with the media. It’s a brief story about a ride I took on my motorcycle to the United 93 Memorial on a rainy June day back in 2004. It was written shortly after I had … Continue reading →

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Media News Roundup

Posted on September 10, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

The Rise and Fall of the Internet-Predecessor ARPANET A cool animated GIF that shows how the original wide-sale host-to-host network grew and eventually declined.  Fascinating pre-history of the Internet.  Miley Loses Vogue Cover Over Twerking at VMAs You have to … Continue reading →

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Is this a better approach for advertising beer?

Posted on September 7, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

Beer advertisers have been taking a fair amount of heat lately for producing messages that are sophomoric at best and brand damaging at worst.  These ads are criticized for promoting over consumption of lousy beer to under age or barely … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 11 | Tagged | 2 Comments

Questions Worth Asking (Maybe)

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

Has the balancing act between cable/satellite providers and content companies hit the breaking point? Maybe.  Dish and Disney get ready for a showdown over ESPN.  This could make the Time Warner Cable/CBS dispute look like paddycake! HT @mediatwit What did … Continue reading →

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Time Warner Cable / CBS Resolve Month-Long Retransmission Dispute

Posted on September 3, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

Time Warner Cable and CBS Inc. have finally resolved their month-long retransmission battle that will bring back CBS broadcast and Showtime back to cable subscribers in New York City, Los Angeles and the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. This means that subscribers … Continue reading →

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MLK, Mahalia Jackson and the “I have a dream” speech

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

One thing I learned this week during the 5oth anniversary of the March on Washington was that a substantial part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I have a dream” speech was improvised.  Specifically, the part about having a dream… … Continue reading →

Posted in Chapter 13, Chapter 7 | Tagged | 1 Comment

“I have a dream…” Washington Post virtually ignored the speech 50 years ago

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

Today was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered what is considered to be one of the great speeches of the 20th century, if not one of the best American speeches ever: And … Continue reading →

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First Media Memories – Part III

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

The final set of my media literacy students’ first media memories:  Dragon Tales – “Max and Emmy are the main characters who are able to touch a magical dragon scale and travel to a place called Dragon Land. In Dragon … Continue reading →

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First Media Memories – Part II

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Ralph Hanson

More first media memories from my Global Media Literacy class (updated 8/28/13): Social media website Bebo. “When asked, the social media website Bebo and instant messaging program MSN were the first medias that popped into my head.”“My media memory is … Continue reading →

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